Lebanon’s top Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah on Sunday issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, banning the normalization of ties with Israel.

“Normalization with the Zionist enemy in any form is prohibited by Sharia (Islamic law),” Fadlallah said in statement.
“We confirm that the fatwa against normalization applies to every Muslim,” he stressed.

The United States has called on Arab states to begin normalizing ties with Israel and on the Jewish state to halt settlement construction in the occupied West Bank in efforts to facilitate resumption of Israel-Palestinian talks broken off in December.

Several Arab governments have indicated that they would consider steps towards normalization but only if Israel agrees to a complete halt to settlement construction.

Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with the Israel.